Obama Stops His Bleeding, Plus A Semi-defense Of Zogby

My two daily tracking poll averages (one with, the other without the Battleground and Investor's Business Daily polls, both of which are more backward-looking) both show Obama ticking up a bit today. While there were a couple slightly disconcerting state polls (on which I'll defer to Nate Silver), the national bleeding looks like it's stopped.

As for Zogby: He was the first to show real tightening over the weekend--a day or two before most of the other trackers. Likewise, he was among the first to show Obama stabilizing, then ticking back up. (The WaPo poll was the only other tracker that basically caught these trends early.) To be sure, Zogby's swings tend to be more violent than the rest of the bunch, suggesting they're a bit exaggerated. But the timing and direction seem about right, which is really all you can ask for at this point.

If Zogby's predictive powers hold up, that should bode well for Obama over the next few days: Today's reading jumped almost 50 percent, from a 4.7 to a 6.9-point lead.